UE11 vs ACS T1, in recovery.
First time back on this forum for quite some time, so I thought I would get my posting going again with a very short review of these two astonishing audio products and describe the very unusual setting they survived.
I am very out of touch so things may of moved on somewhat?
I have been absent from the boards for some time because I have, since a young age, battled with substance abuse/drug addiction and after many years clean and sober I fell back into the old pit far to quickly, so stupid! I am not ashamed of my situation nor do I make any excuse for it beyond my own stupidity and a career as a DJ where these things are thrown at you. (If you are offended by the nature of addiction then do not read on).
Needless to say that during this period in the wilderness everything of value got flogged off, and this leads me to one of the fundamental point of this tale, that though valuable the custom nature of these IEM’s makes them worthless to anyone else other than yourself, thereby saving them and ultimately, saving me, through the redemptive, cathartic and liberating experience of music listening (more specifically the immersive nature of headphone listening).
I have now done my detox and believe me, was it not for music and these unsalable headphones I would not have made it, hard as coffin nails!
So to the review, unfortunately no pictures as I have no camera (sold it) but my monitors have been seen around the portable rig thread ages ago.
I have been through the gamut of portable headphone amps Xin, RSA etc. I observed that although they are essential to some IEM, with the customs they are less important and both the T1 and UE11 are magnificent without them straight from and iPod, but like any first class audio product they grow to accommodate what feeds them.
So to the nature of the review - Two sets of customs, One 4th gen iPod with its wonderful Wolfson Microelectronics DAC! And a host of ALAC rips from pretty much every musical genre you can shake a stick at.
My comparative listening was done, at first, with a Stax O2 rig and Spendor SP1/2R, fed by my vinyl setup, Linn LP12 and Lenco/Aro, Linto, or Ikemi or Meridian 588 CDP and finally the beautiful Atelier Du Triode amp (all sold)!
As I progressed through the sale of this equipment I would evaluate sound quality and gauge it one against the other to determine which one I could live without and sell the loser to fund my addictions. The hardest to let go was my Vinyl setup and Spendor speakers, oh how I miss you! The rest I had no real attachment to, knowing (after concluding such) I could get 90% of their definition from my iPod and the UE11 and 95% from the T1’s! It really is that close with the incremental steps of higher end audio! What they lack, and what every headphone I have ever heard lacks, is the visceral and tactile substance of the music experience, the body and weight that you experience whilst at a club or a live concert, it is the full sensory immersion you will never get with any headphone which are, by their nature, almost entirely cerebral.
So it all went, tens of thousands of pounds worth of equipment and vinyl and I was left with just these two sets of IEM’s and a battered old ipod! They went with me everywhere and I swapped the IEM’s over frequently through my derangement.
The nature of the opiate experience is such that it narrows emotional breadth until you reach a stage where you are literally “Chasin’ A Feeling” (Quivver- Original mix) The wonderful range of emotions that we get to experience sober are locked out whilst you are using and you are left with, high or sick or chipping, with a constant need but very little else beyond desperation! It is an insular, dark and selfish place to be and I can not find one positive reason for being in such a place! But if you don’t want to be a junkie, and I really don’t (though many do)! You come to the situation that every user dreads! You are going to have to detoxify and do “The rattle!”
I won’t go into much detail about detox but initially it is just pure filth and horror! All that was shut out by the drugs floods back in, in a tidal wave of psychotic hallucinations and pain, It overwhelms your senses entirely and is unbearable! This is why you see so many users who desperately want to get clean still on the street and using, not because of weakness but because the alternative cure, for most of them, is detox without intervention or help, this is both dangerous and impossible to do on ones own, without medical and social help and support! I cannot begin to describe the strung out anxiety of a detox from drugs and alcohol, I can only recommend that it is best avoided and I would not wish one on my worst enemy! Granted you have other drugs to help you through it, anticonvulsants etc. Or you can choose to go the methadone route but that is just replacing one evil with another or “taking the edge off.” I chose to do it as cold as I was allowed, I wanted the edge, to experience as much of the suffering as I could bare, it was all I deserved and I wanted it nailed indelibly to my memory because I know that I do not have the strength of will to do it again.
After the worst of it and things start to slow down and level off and the pain and mental anguish subsides, you are like an exposed nerve, tender to every sensation, wrung out! Everything aches, including your ears! May sound daft but this is where the T1’s have the UE11 beat hands down, comfort. There also comes another craving, not for narcotics but for all the positive sensations and experiences that were shut out by the drugs, taste, smell, sounds, touch, they return with new alacrity! For me the buzz was sounds - music and literature. I listened to music and read almost 24/7 for weeks, raw and bruised, shamed and empty; I just listened and allowed myself to gradually fill up again! I slowly remembered words learned on Head-Fi, like timbre and integrity, treble, midrange and an overall coherence; I slowly pieced together from the fragments of my addiction a world of music and a vocabulary that once again mattered. When the sadness all got a bit much I immersed myself in comparisons between the two IEM’s, focused on the differences in presentation, and made notes; both IEM’s gave me the clear window into the music to do that, and when I was feeling good I allowed the music to transport me and I analysed nothing.
Music and words carried me through the desolation of drugs and recovery and eventually liberated me from their grip, and the grip of the suffering one feels in the stages of early recovery, until I eventually remembered why I wanted to be sober which, believe it or not, is one of the hardest realisations to make. Music has remained with me throughout all the sh*t and the misery, and whilst the drugs I chose to take, at first enhanced the listening experience, they, after a while, numbed me to everything but suffering.
So to Head-fi this strange review and headphones and expensive custom IEM’s that by their very nature are unsellable. Sometimes you need this unfailing permanence! To often we get caught up in the cycle of buying and selling and upgrading and the true value of what we have already is lost, possessions are perceived only for their commercial worth. If I could have sold the IEM’s I would of, in a heartbeat, but I am very glad I could not! They therefore represent the two best investments I have ever made in the audio marketplace by a long way.
I am thankful that I have been given this final chance at 35, I never stole and I never harmed anyone but myself, for this moral integrity I have my parents to thank, it is the most valuable thing I posses! I have sold almost every material possession I owned and I feel liberated and lucky to have done so, I believe that these possessions become our own albatross and therefore I have no intention of accumulating any more audio equipment, I am on a different set of incremental steps now! I live frugally; I am trained as an architect but will continue to work with the homeless as I do and take photographs when I have saved for a camera. What I have now is more than enough! If I invest in anything it will be in a new set of the T1’s as I have lost mine which makes me sad, them having been through the mill with me. My UE11’s are chipped, there is a large crack in one, they have been immersed in fluid and left to dry, the pin attachment of one is bent in the body, they are battered but they still work flawlessly! The music they produce, wonderful!
I imagine that fundamentally we are all on these boards because we love music, and we want to hear it reproduced the best way we can? What either of these IEMs will give you, should you wisely choose to invest, is that direct connection to the music that removes all the stages in between.
Which IEM is better? They are both so good it really does not matter; they are both tough enough to survive the rigours and the squalor of a life on the streets and interim accommodations and good enough to make me, not so much, mourn the loss of my beloved vinyl and Spendor speakers! Sound wise the T1 is the more neutral of the two and their customer service is second to none!
Remember, if anyone ever says that it is “only music!” Then give them a cuff round the ear! Music can truly save lives, redeem and guide us through the dark to a better place. As with all things pleasurable in life moderation is the path best followed except for music and literature, these things affirm life and rarely, if ever, destroy it!
Thanks for a certain level of anonymity. Peace!
First time back on this forum for quite some time, so I thought I would get my posting going again with a very short review of these two astonishing audio products and describe the very unusual setting they survived.
I am very out of touch so things may of moved on somewhat?
I have been absent from the boards for some time because I have, since a young age, battled with substance abuse/drug addiction and after many years clean and sober I fell back into the old pit far to quickly, so stupid! I am not ashamed of my situation nor do I make any excuse for it beyond my own stupidity and a career as a DJ where these things are thrown at you. (If you are offended by the nature of addiction then do not read on).
Needless to say that during this period in the wilderness everything of value got flogged off, and this leads me to one of the fundamental point of this tale, that though valuable the custom nature of these IEM’s makes them worthless to anyone else other than yourself, thereby saving them and ultimately, saving me, through the redemptive, cathartic and liberating experience of music listening (more specifically the immersive nature of headphone listening).
I have now done my detox and believe me, was it not for music and these unsalable headphones I would not have made it, hard as coffin nails!
So to the review, unfortunately no pictures as I have no camera (sold it) but my monitors have been seen around the portable rig thread ages ago.
I have been through the gamut of portable headphone amps Xin, RSA etc. I observed that although they are essential to some IEM, with the customs they are less important and both the T1 and UE11 are magnificent without them straight from and iPod, but like any first class audio product they grow to accommodate what feeds them.
So to the nature of the review - Two sets of customs, One 4th gen iPod with its wonderful Wolfson Microelectronics DAC! And a host of ALAC rips from pretty much every musical genre you can shake a stick at.
My comparative listening was done, at first, with a Stax O2 rig and Spendor SP1/2R, fed by my vinyl setup, Linn LP12 and Lenco/Aro, Linto, or Ikemi or Meridian 588 CDP and finally the beautiful Atelier Du Triode amp (all sold)!
As I progressed through the sale of this equipment I would evaluate sound quality and gauge it one against the other to determine which one I could live without and sell the loser to fund my addictions. The hardest to let go was my Vinyl setup and Spendor speakers, oh how I miss you! The rest I had no real attachment to, knowing (after concluding such) I could get 90% of their definition from my iPod and the UE11 and 95% from the T1’s! It really is that close with the incremental steps of higher end audio! What they lack, and what every headphone I have ever heard lacks, is the visceral and tactile substance of the music experience, the body and weight that you experience whilst at a club or a live concert, it is the full sensory immersion you will never get with any headphone which are, by their nature, almost entirely cerebral.
So it all went, tens of thousands of pounds worth of equipment and vinyl and I was left with just these two sets of IEM’s and a battered old ipod! They went with me everywhere and I swapped the IEM’s over frequently through my derangement.
The nature of the opiate experience is such that it narrows emotional breadth until you reach a stage where you are literally “Chasin’ A Feeling” (Quivver- Original mix) The wonderful range of emotions that we get to experience sober are locked out whilst you are using and you are left with, high or sick or chipping, with a constant need but very little else beyond desperation! It is an insular, dark and selfish place to be and I can not find one positive reason for being in such a place! But if you don’t want to be a junkie, and I really don’t (though many do)! You come to the situation that every user dreads! You are going to have to detoxify and do “The rattle!”
I won’t go into much detail about detox but initially it is just pure filth and horror! All that was shut out by the drugs floods back in, in a tidal wave of psychotic hallucinations and pain, It overwhelms your senses entirely and is unbearable! This is why you see so many users who desperately want to get clean still on the street and using, not because of weakness but because the alternative cure, for most of them, is detox without intervention or help, this is both dangerous and impossible to do on ones own, without medical and social help and support! I cannot begin to describe the strung out anxiety of a detox from drugs and alcohol, I can only recommend that it is best avoided and I would not wish one on my worst enemy! Granted you have other drugs to help you through it, anticonvulsants etc. Or you can choose to go the methadone route but that is just replacing one evil with another or “taking the edge off.” I chose to do it as cold as I was allowed, I wanted the edge, to experience as much of the suffering as I could bare, it was all I deserved and I wanted it nailed indelibly to my memory because I know that I do not have the strength of will to do it again.
After the worst of it and things start to slow down and level off and the pain and mental anguish subsides, you are like an exposed nerve, tender to every sensation, wrung out! Everything aches, including your ears! May sound daft but this is where the T1’s have the UE11 beat hands down, comfort. There also comes another craving, not for narcotics but for all the positive sensations and experiences that were shut out by the drugs, taste, smell, sounds, touch, they return with new alacrity! For me the buzz was sounds - music and literature. I listened to music and read almost 24/7 for weeks, raw and bruised, shamed and empty; I just listened and allowed myself to gradually fill up again! I slowly remembered words learned on Head-Fi, like timbre and integrity, treble, midrange and an overall coherence; I slowly pieced together from the fragments of my addiction a world of music and a vocabulary that once again mattered. When the sadness all got a bit much I immersed myself in comparisons between the two IEM’s, focused on the differences in presentation, and made notes; both IEM’s gave me the clear window into the music to do that, and when I was feeling good I allowed the music to transport me and I analysed nothing.
Music and words carried me through the desolation of drugs and recovery and eventually liberated me from their grip, and the grip of the suffering one feels in the stages of early recovery, until I eventually remembered why I wanted to be sober which, believe it or not, is one of the hardest realisations to make. Music has remained with me throughout all the sh*t and the misery, and whilst the drugs I chose to take, at first enhanced the listening experience, they, after a while, numbed me to everything but suffering.
So to Head-fi this strange review and headphones and expensive custom IEM’s that by their very nature are unsellable. Sometimes you need this unfailing permanence! To often we get caught up in the cycle of buying and selling and upgrading and the true value of what we have already is lost, possessions are perceived only for their commercial worth. If I could have sold the IEM’s I would of, in a heartbeat, but I am very glad I could not! They therefore represent the two best investments I have ever made in the audio marketplace by a long way.
I am thankful that I have been given this final chance at 35, I never stole and I never harmed anyone but myself, for this moral integrity I have my parents to thank, it is the most valuable thing I posses! I have sold almost every material possession I owned and I feel liberated and lucky to have done so, I believe that these possessions become our own albatross and therefore I have no intention of accumulating any more audio equipment, I am on a different set of incremental steps now! I live frugally; I am trained as an architect but will continue to work with the homeless as I do and take photographs when I have saved for a camera. What I have now is more than enough! If I invest in anything it will be in a new set of the T1’s as I have lost mine which makes me sad, them having been through the mill with me. My UE11’s are chipped, there is a large crack in one, they have been immersed in fluid and left to dry, the pin attachment of one is bent in the body, they are battered but they still work flawlessly! The music they produce, wonderful!
I imagine that fundamentally we are all on these boards because we love music, and we want to hear it reproduced the best way we can? What either of these IEMs will give you, should you wisely choose to invest, is that direct connection to the music that removes all the stages in between.
Which IEM is better? They are both so good it really does not matter; they are both tough enough to survive the rigours and the squalor of a life on the streets and interim accommodations and good enough to make me, not so much, mourn the loss of my beloved vinyl and Spendor speakers! Sound wise the T1 is the more neutral of the two and their customer service is second to none!
Remember, if anyone ever says that it is “only music!” Then give them a cuff round the ear! Music can truly save lives, redeem and guide us through the dark to a better place. As with all things pleasurable in life moderation is the path best followed except for music and literature, these things affirm life and rarely, if ever, destroy it!
Thanks for a certain level of anonymity. Peace!
